


after the wolf do wild men follow

by CallicoKitten



Category: Captain America, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Angst, Clint and Darcy are bros, Daemons, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Steve Has Issues, and all his friends are dead, or are they?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:04:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallicoKitten/pseuds/CallicoKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Steve sees her he’s sure it’s just his imagination.<br/>Because it <em>can’t</em> be her.</p><p>Steve start's seeing a ghost from his past, the daemon of someone he watched die, and then, as things always seem to, everything goes to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. So I wrote a crappy Avengers daemon au.
> 
> HAVE IT.
> 
> Daemon notes and forms at the end, as well as one or two notes. 
> 
> Apologies for unimaginative forms.
> 
> Title is a quote from the Poetic Edda and I was saving it for when I write an epic about how Rickon Stark leads an uprising and claims the iron throne but that'll probably never happen SO.
> 
>  
> 
> Unbeta'd and enjoy!

The first time Steve sees her he’s sure it’s just his imagination.

Because it _can’t_ be her.

It’s in the aftermath of Loki’s attack on New York; he’s standing in the wreckage of the city he was born in over eighty years ago. There’s smoke and screams and twisted metal and flames (it could be anywhere, any city during the war, the quaint French villages, the frozen Russian cities, Dresden, _anywhere_ ) Alessia is at his side, barking orders right along with him, coordinating rescues. She’s beautiful like this; sooty and singed, there’s a tear in her ear and a small gash on her side.

It’s how they’re meant to be. 

But he can’t shake the feeling that someone’s missing.

Tony flies across overhead, his crow daemon spiralling down towards another group of trapped survivors or something. The sun glints of Tony’s suit and Mena’s glossy black feathers and Steve watches them soarMaori for a while before looking back down.

That’s when he sees her.

Deep blue eyes and soft grey fur.

He drops a hand to grasp Alessia’s ruff, blinks and she’s gone. 

Alessia looks up, “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I saw...” but he can’t be, _couldn’t_ be, so he looks away. “Never mind.” 

She leans against him and licks his hand.

*****

Alessia settles when he’s ten years old.

It’s not unusual, they’re at war, kids grow up fast. Especially orphans. But then, Alessia settles before his mom dies. Most of the kids at the orphanage are a lot older than him, or a lot younger than him. He gets picked on a lot (but hey, kids are cruel and as long as their picking on _him_ they’re not picking on anyone else) 

Bucky’s a month younger than him and he’s already been there four years. His daemon, Aneira, is a gray wolf with the bluest eyes Steve’s ever seen. Steve’s a little jealous of her, truth be told, Alessia is only part wolf, Aneira is pure and beautiful and wild but then again Steve’s never been wild so in that respect Alessia is perfect.

He and Bucky don’t hit it off right away, to Bucky Steve’s just another trouble maker, to Steve Bucky’s just another bully. But things happen and people change and they become inseparable. They move out of the orphanage when they’re both sixteen, Bucky gets two jobs and Steve does what he can.

It’s not much but it’s theirs.

It’s home. It’s family.

*****

Steve has nightmares sometimes.

Sometimes it’s the camps and the starving, sick, _severed_ people they saw. Sometimes it’s the battles and he wakes up in a haze of gunfire and explosions murmuring orders. Sometimes it’s the plane crash and _coldcoldcold._ Sometimes it's brown eyes and a beautiful red dress.

Mostly it’s the train.

Aneira fell first, that was the most terrifying part, hearing her howl as she spiralled downwards in to the snowy abyss. Seeing Bucky’s face drain of colour, his eyes go wide, his wordless _scream_ of pain and loss and terror.

Alessia screaming, howling, barking beside him and he’s reaching – reaching even though he knows that Bucky’s going to fall.

He wakes up in a cold sweat and he's grateful that the other Avengers have nightmares of their own to keep them occupied. Some nights it's like being back in the barracks, people crying out, pacing around, and it _shouldn't be._

Tony and Bruce, Tasha and Clint, none of them have fought in a war ("World's always at war, Steve," Tasha had said, Vikenti chuckling softly as he wound himself around her wrist.) 

He doesn't know about Thor but then Thor took off with Loki and headed back to Asgard (Steve still couldn't get over that, Thor had no daemon but he didn't feel severed) Loki had a daemon though. A broken thing always something dark and vicious. Until he'd left and his daemon had been chained to the tesseract as an arctic fox. 

Thor had been surprised that his brother had a daemon, Steve didn't like to think about what that implied.

*****

The second time he sees her he knows it’s not a trick.

He's jogging in the park, Alessia humming old marching tunes beside him. "Do you have to do that, Ally?" 

She grins up at him, "Keeps you going, don't it?"

She talks a lot like Bucky, it used to bother him. Now not so much. He chuckles breathless, "Yeah, guess it does." He pauses for a breather and a gulp of water watches as Alessia jogs on for a few meters before spinning, tail raised. "Awh, you tired, Steve?"

Steve smiles. "Just taking five, Ally." She yips impatiently, jogs back to him and beyond. Since the serum Alessia's been able to go further than she should, it doesn't hurt, doesn't weaken their bond, but it still gives him a mini heart attack when she's out of his sight for more than a few minutes. 

He watches her disappear into the gathering twilight. That's when he sees her.

And this time he's sure. 

"Aneira," he whispers and just like that she's gone, disappearing in to the night quick as a shadow.

"Steve!" Alessia shouts bounding back to him, "Steve! I just saw-"

"Aneira," he finishes for her, she nods frantically.

"But it can't be," Alessia whispers, ears down.

Steve drops to one knee, curls a hand in her warm fur. "I know."

*****

Sometimes Tony reminds Steve so forcibly of Howard that its unnerving, they have the same grin, the same laugh, the same quick wit. But Mena with her harsh caw and dark glossy feathers is a million miles away from Ilona's dark fur and giggle.  


When he met Tony he only saw him for all his flaws, the bottle of scotch he keeps by the bed, the way he can't seem to understand how to let people in, the way his hackles raise and Mena tenses far too early, the egotistical, selfish man behind Stark Enterprises. It made his skin crawl, made Alessia growl deep in her throat because this couldn't be _Howard's son._

"War is hell," Alessia says. "It probably messed him up too."

He's seen videos about the attack on Japan. Seem photos of the aftermath, the burns, the twisted corpses, the empty eyes. He thinks if he was involved in that he'd go crazy too. He wonders what Howard did when he realised what the Manhattan Project actually looked like in action. (He wonders too if that's what made Ilona's fur stopped shining because its so, so much duller in the more recent photos.)

He walks in to Tony's lab still sweaty from the jog, he probably should have showered and by the way Tony wrinkles his nose it's clear he agrees.  
("Told you," Alessia hisses.)

"What's up, Cap?" Tony's panting slightly, face flecked with oil or grease or something.

Mena swoops down from wherever she was to alight briefly on Alessia's back, "You two look like you've seen a ghost." 

Steve tries his best to smile dismissively, "Just tired. Listen, I need to know if SHIELD still have files on - on Red Skull. Johann Schmidt." He adds when Tony frowns a little.

"Oh, the guy who tried to take over the world back in your time? Sure they do." He smirks, "Why, feeling nostalgic?"

Steve thinks about the flash of grey fur and blue eyes, "Something like that."

He knows Tony doesn't buy it but he's banking on the theory that Tony will be more interested in hacking in to the SHIELD database again then finding out why Steve's so curios. 

Besides, Steve fully intends to tell Tony what he's looking for (when he actually _knows_ what he's looking for.

Tony watches him for a few seconds, calculating and Mena lands on his shoulder, bends to say something low in his ear. "Alrighty then," he says with a grin. "Let's go piss Fury off some more. I'd been meaning to poke at him some time this week."

*****

When he first wakes up and everything is strange, everything is different, Alessia is his only constant. He doesn't let go of her for three days and when he finally does let go it feels like the worlds about to crack in two and flip upside down.

It doesn't of course. It keeps turning just like it always has.

He's given the files after a week of asking. A neat little pile of manilla envelopes and neatly typed documents. This is all that's left of his life, his family and it all fits in cardboard box.

Alessia whines at his feet as he spreads them out on the dark wood table of the apartment SHIELD have given him. It's bigger and fancier then his old place in Brooklyn, so much more than he's ever had (but he's still alone, he still has nothing but his daemon and his nightmares.)

Peggy's the only one still alive, retired of course and living in Britain. The picture attached is from the camp. Beautiful and young and proud, Milon by her side, teeth half bared in a grin. 

Alessia pushes her head in to his lap, "We could go see her. Fly over as a surprise, take her out for that dance."

Steve traces the address with forefinger. "She has a family now. A husband, kids, grandkids."

"Coulda been our kids," Alessia says softly.

Steve laughs because on the rare nights he dreams good things its always Peggy and him in a neat little house, couple of kids running about, her in an apron baking. He scratches Alessia behind the ears as she laughs wetly. "An _apron_ , she scoffs, "Really, Steve?"

In the end they don't go. Steve wants to say its because he doesn't want to dredge up old feelings, that he doesn't want to upset her. (But maybe it's more because he doesn't want to think of her as anything out her than the brave young woman who loved him, and she _did_ love him, he's sure if that. But maybe she wouldn't anymore and that terrifies him.)

He stares at Bucky's file for a long time.

 _M.I.A_ it says, _presumed dead._

He shuts the file and shoves it away.

"Maybe it would have been easier," Alessia says tentatively. "If we had died and they had found us quickly. Woulda given them closure at least."

Steve pushes her away. 

She's right though.

*****

"Any particular file, Rogers?" Tony drawls, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. Mena is perched on Tony's shoulder watching the lines of code her human types.

"Barnes," Alessia answers for him. "James Barnes." 

"James Barnes..." Tony repeats. "Hmm. There's not much here." He spins the screen to face Steve. "See?"

Alessia growls in frustration, "It's the same stuff as they gave us!"

Steve sighs, "That's all there is with his name?" 

Tony frowns, "Yeah, Cap. What's this about anyway?" Mena is watching them carefully and Steve wriggles under the crow's dark gaze. 

"Doesn't matter," Steve mutters, stomping down to the gym to break something.

*****

Thor rejoins them a few months after the incident with Loki, he brings Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis with him. Steve likes Jane well enough, she's clever and brave and kind and her genet daemon is sweet. Darcy Lewis is a little odd and her daemon is an ambling, scaled creature that Bruce tells him is called a pangolin but they fit right in at the tower.

He comes across Thor in the kitchen one day, wrestling with the coffee maker. Steve attempts to help him and Alessia laughs herself hoarse but by the end of it they both have mugs off passable coffee. "How's your brother?" Steve asks and Thor looks faintly surprised. 

"He is better," he says hesitantly. "Now that he has his - his daemon back."

"So how come Loki has one but you don't?"

Thor sighs, "Loki is not... The Aesir don't have daemons, our souls reside inside us. Loki is not Aesir. I thought he was but..."

Alessia's ears are pricked with interest. "So Loki's daemon just survived without him all those years?" Steve asks.

"I suppose so," Thor says, a dark undercurrent to his words. "My father kept them apart. He says he didn't know but... The Allfather is supposedly all knowing."

"Do you think human daemons could survive like that?" Alessia asks quietly later that night. She's sprawled on the bed beside him, head on his chest. 

"I don't know. Could you?"

Alessia sits up. "I dunno," she says thoughtfully. "Maybe." She licks his cheek. "They could be alive, you know."

"We saw them fall, Ally. No one could survive that."

"Schmidt was experimenting on him, right? He coulda-"

"Alessia..." 

His daemon huffs. "I liked you better before everyone we loved died. You were much more optimistic." 

"Yeah," Steve sighs, rolling away from her. "I liked me better then too."

*****

He visits their graves.

Every one of them. 

"Everyone except Bucky," Alessia reminds him. Bucky doesn't have a grave. Steve had meant to get him one when the war was over, something nice in Brooklyn, something worthy  
of his best friend, his brother. But then he died and somewhere along the way Bucky got lost.

He thinks about asking SHIELD to help him get one made, maybe not a grave but _something_ but he can't think of anything worth Bucky and Aneira so he doesn't.

It's enough to make him wish he could get drunk.

*****

Clint whistles as the punching bag goes flying past him. "Helluva right hook there, Steve."

Alessia growls. 

"I'm not in the mood today, Clint," Steve says, as politely as possible, tying up another bag. 

"I can see that," Clint remarks, eyeing the broken equipment. "It looks like Bruce lost it in here, the hell happened, Cap?"

Clint looks relaxed but from the way Kahu is hovering just within reach of Alessia Steve knows that Clint is far from relaxed. Steve sighs. "Nothing, okay? I'm fine."

Clint snorts, "If this is fine I'd hate to see pissed." 

Steve thinks about telling Clint that he's pretty sure he's being stalked by his dead best friend's daemon but they're interrupted by the arrival of Darcy and her odd daemon. "Whoa, what did Bruce hulk out over this time?"

"Actually," Clint says with a strange look. "This was Steve."

Darcy's eyes go wide, "Wow, for someone who should be like, eighty you really know how to throw a tantrum." 

"I'll clean it up," Steve mutters. 

"Hey, no worries, buddy," Clint pats him on the back. "I'll do it. You look like you could use a drink. Or maybe a whole bottle of drink."

Steve smiles half-heartedly. "It doesn't work on me."

Darcy shakes her head sympathetically, "Dude, that totally sucks."

*****

He's woken up by Alessia nudging him. The glowing numbers on the alarm clock by his bed say: 4am.

"What?" He whispers.

"There's someone here," she says, her voice low. 

Steve sits up immediately, "There aren't any alarms going off though." Tony's got several high tech security systems in place plus JARVIS. No one should be able to break in. 

"Steve," she implores. "There's someone here."

He trusts Alessia more than he trusts himself so he gets up, swings himself out of bed and pads after her into the hallway. "Where, Ally?"

She pauses, ears pricked, nose twitching. "Steve, I can only smell human."

He looks at her, questioning. 

"I can't smell a daemon." She clarifies.

There's a flurry of movement behind them and Steve spins, fists raised, Alessia snarling. "Natasha?"

Natasha sighs, lowers her gun. "Steve?" 

"Ally says there's someone downstairs," Steve hisses.

She cocks her head, Vikenti slithering down her arm. "We heard it too."

"Wake up the others," he says. 

"Are you sure you should-? She begins, but he cuts her off with a look. She nods once, "Vikenti is going with you though." 

Steve nods and Tasha's snake daemon drops on to Alessia's back. "We should sound the alarm." Alessia says, "It'd be quicker." 

"If whoever's broken in thinks they're undetected they'll be easier to surprise," Tasha says. 

Steve nods, "Right."

Tasha turns, disappears into the dark hallway. 

"He's on the top floor, Steve," Alessia hisses. 

"He?" 

Vikenti nods, "He," the snake nods.

They move quickly, quietly, Alessia a dark, silent blur at his feet. Alessia looks at him when they get to the doorway to the main living room. _You go in this way_ , she communicates. _We'll go around._

Steve nods and steps into the darkened room. 

It's been a few months since Bruce put a Loki-sized hole in the floor and the windows have all been repaired but the room is still a mess. Magazines and clothes and weapons strewn about. The figure is crouching a few feet away from him, probably intending to jump out at him.

*****

In the end it takes all of them to pin the man with the mechanical arm down and it's only then, when Hulk is holding him down and Tasha's eyes go wide with recognition ("Yasha?" She snarls.) that he realises who they're pining down, "Bucky?" 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, it's been a while :')
> 
> warning for one of the cheesiest things i ever written in my almost two years of fic writing

Steve paces. His mind is a hurricane. Alessia is watching, whining softly. _This can’t be happening_. It _shouldn’t_. Natasha is sat with her hands neatly folded on the tabletop, watching him calmly. Vikenti is coiled around her throat. "You know him," Steve says quietly. "Why didnt you tell me."

"I didn't know," she replies quietly. "I didn't make the connection." 

"Bull _shit_ ," Steve snaps before he can catch himself. "You knew who he was. You knew who was _to me_ , why didn't you say anything." It hurts dully, she'd been the closest thing he had to a friend when he was still finding his feet. She'd been the one who gave him the files in the first place. 

She unfolds her hands, brushes her hair back, "I only knew a few months ago. I was told not to tell you," She says simply. "And they were the type of orders I couldn't disobey." 

Alessia snarls low in her throat and Steve tugs at his hair. They've got Bucky, the _Winter Soldier_ Clint calls him, tranqued and cuffed in a small room downstairs while they wait for S.H.I.E.L.D to get here, not that Steve has any intention of letting them whisk Bucky away to some unknown corner of the world. "Tell me where you met him." 

She leans back and Vikenti hisses quietly, "The Red Room, he was one of theirs. A Soviet assassin, the best. I trained with him for a bit. I knew him as Yasha." 

"Why would an American soldier work for the Soviets?" Alessia barks. 

Natasha glances down her, "He spoke perfect Russian and when he spoke English it was with a Russian accent." She sits forward, "You saw what Loki did to Clint? Those people had the power to do that without a staff. I don't know what they did to your friend but whatever it was they tore him out and put whatever they wanted back in." 

Alessia wants to tear something, rip someone to _pieces_ and Steve can feel her rage pulsing through him. Bucky is _alive_ and _here_ and they _knew_. S.H.I.E.L.D knew but they smiled and offered condolences and handed him files filled with _lies_ (and Steve knows better than to blindly trust shady organisations after New York but _godammit_.) He's _seething_ , he can't even think straight and Natasha, who _knew_ and didn't say anything because of _orders_ is sat there watching him without a glimmer of remorse. 

"Steve," she says carefully, "I'm sorry." 

Steve sees red, white hot, and the next thing he knows he's put his fist though Tony's stupid glass table. Natasha stares up at him, more disbelieving than frightened and Steve blanches a little, rubs at the back of his neck. "I'm going to see him."

-

He stares through the tiny glass window at the body on the table. Tony's taken his arm - and Steve can't process the fact that Bucky's here let alone that he has _one arm_ \- and it's all way too much like finding him strapped to a gurney in Red Skull's hideout. He's pale, there's dark make up smudged around his eyes, around his face, he's pale and _alone_.

("He doesn't have a daemon," Tony had muttered, staring at Bucky's prone body, Mena on his shoulder.

Natasha had stood up, Vikenti winding himself around her arm, "He doesn't have one. At least he never did when I knew him.")

Ally leans against his leg, warm and solid, "We saw her, Steve. We saw _her_."

Steve drops a hand to rest on her head, "I don't know, Ally." He says quietly. "How could she survive that?"

Bucky shifts on the table, yells something unintelligible and Steve braces himself, slipping back into battle mode immediately. There's a soft snigger from somewhere behind him and he spins to find Bruce watching them, Iakona draped across his shoulders, "You can relax," Bruce says, a soft smile on his face. "I gave him enough tranquillisers to keep the Other Guy down." 

Steve relaxes a fraction and Bruce steps towards them, peering into the room, "So, he's an old army buddy of yours, huh?"

"Yeah. My best friend, actually. We meet a long time before the war." 

Bruce shoots him a sympathetic look and Iakona jumps down to touch noses with Ally. "So, Tony was yelling earlier about you breaking a table? Natasha didn't look too pleased either." 

Steve winces, "Yeah, I lost it a little bit. I just - I don't under _stand_..."

"How S.H.I.E.L.D could hide this from you? If they _had_ told you, you would have gone after him right away, right?" 

"Without a second thought." 

"They knew that. They kept you right where they wanted you, which is why I spent so much of my life hiding from them. They don't care about _you_ they just care about what you can do," Bruce says bitterly. His daemon winds herself around his legs and says something too quiet for Steve to hear. 

"I'm not even angry about that, I'm angry with Natasha. She knew and she didn't say _anything_." 

"Maybe she didn't want to hurt you," Iakona says softly, tail twitching. Steve wants to believe that. He smiles weakly, “Yeah, maybe.” He looks back at Bucky and he just looks so damn _lonely_ laid out like that. “Bruce,” he asks quietly. “Do you think daemons can survive without their humans?”

“Well, there was a case I read about a long time ago; a man’s daemon fell down a cliff in a jungle in Borneo. Took them a month to find each other, they were weak as hell but alive. I read about what happened to Bucky, I read a lot about Red Skull’s experiments too when I was - uh - doing my own research into the serum. Red Skull was close, closest I’ve ever seen. And the serum affects daemons too, Bucky doesn’t feel severed. There’s a good chance his daemons somewhere out there.” 

“We’ll find her, Steve,” Ally says quietly. “We know she’s in the city. It can’t be that hard.”

There a soft bleep and JARVIS says, “Mr Rogers, Mr Banner, Tony would like me to inform you the Agent Hill and several others have arrived to take Mr Barnes.”

Ally growls low in her throat, “Let them _try_.”

-

Maria Hill’s daemon is a kingfisher sitting unmoving on her shoulder. Steve has never known his name, has never seen him exhibit the slightest bit of fear or apprehension or uncomfortableness but right now, facing down Ally he ruffles his wings and clears his throat.

“You’re not taking him,” Steve repeats. Bruce and Tony are behind him, Clint and Natasha on either side. Vikenti is hissing, Mena and Kahu are clacking their beaks in warning. The two agents Hill brought with her are trembling slightly.

“With all due respect, Captain Rogers, I’m under orders. We can do this the easy way or the hard way but one way or another I am taking Sergeant Barnes to a S.H.I.E.L.D facility. It’s for his own good and yours as well,” Hill says enunciating each word carefully.

“No,” Steve says, “No, you’re really not.”

“It’s not safe to have him around - ” Hill begins.

“We dealt with him just fine,” Natasha says quietly. “We’re definitely more equipped to deal with him than you.”

Hill looks like she's trying very hard not to start shooting people, "Agent Romanov," she begins sharply but Vikenti raises himself and spits at her and she flinches just a little (just enough.) She purses her lips and her daemon leans in to whisper in her ear. “I’m calling Director Fury,” She says before stalking out of the room.

Tony claps Steve on the shoulder once she’s gone and says, “I like this you, Cap. Gets me all tingly.”

-

“He doesn’t remember you,” Natasha says quietly. They’ve moved Bucky up to one of the unused bedrooms, still cuffed and drugged and Steve just can’t get used to the fact that Aneira isn’t with him. He’d woken up briefly, sworn at them, caught Clint with a nasty right hook, drawn a knife out of nowhere. Steve had frozen, Alessia had whimpered. There hadn’t been anything of Bucky in the Winter Soldier’s eyes, in the gravelly Russian he’d spat.

“He will,” Steve says back, voice rough with exhaustion. _He has_. Natasha makes a soft noise that might be agreement or might be disbelief but then she says, “I am sorry, you know.”

Steve knows but it doesn’t make it any better.

“He was important to me too,” she says and Vikenti drops from where he was coiled around her wrist to the bed, slithering across to stare at Bucky’s still face. “I wanted him to stay out of this.” She huffs then and sits down in the chair beside Steve, crossing her legs carefully. “What was she like?”

It takes Steve a few moments to realise she’s asking about Aneira. “She was…” _beautiful, funny, just a little feral, loyal, my best friend’s soul_. “Brilliant.” He finishes lamely and Ally sits up and shoves her head in his lap. “Did he ever, you know, try to find his daemon?” he asks, fingers buried in Ally’s fur. _God, he must have been so **lonely**_.

Natasha cocks her head slightly, “I asked him about it once, I thought he’d get angry but he didn’t. He just looked sad. He said he wasn’t sure what happened to her, that they kept telling him he’d never had a daemon but he didn’t believe them.”

Steve nods. _Annie must have been so frightened_.

“She was a wolf, right?” Natasha asks suddenly, “A wolf with blue eyes?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I saw her once,” she says thoughtfully. “In Russia. We were on a mission, I kept seeing a wolf shadowing us. I thought she might have been one of Their daemons checking up on us…”

“We saw her too,” Ally says, ears pricking. “We should find her, Steve! I bet it’d help him remember!”

“That’s actually a good idea,” Natasha says, standing. “Where did you last see her?”

“I was jogging, I’m not sure if - ” Steve mumbles, running a hand through his hair. Ally is standing now, tail thumping on the floor, “Come on Steve! If anyone can find her it’s us!”

Steve looks at her then back at Bucky. 

“I’ll watch over him,” Natasha says immediately.

“No,” Steve mutters. “Not you. How do I know you won’t just turn him over to Fury?”

She actually looks kind of hurt, takes a step back and on the bed Vikenti spits. “How _dare_ you,” he hisses. Natasha holds up a hand to silence him, sets her jaw, “Nyet, Vik,” she says softly. “I understand. But you should know that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. Or you.”

Ally woofs quietly at her and Steve might be being harsh but this is _Bucky_ and he’s not losing him again. “I’ll get Bruce,” he says. “If he’s gone when I get back - ” he breaks off, doesn’t need to finish.

Natasha nods, “He won’t be.”

-

Steve steps out of the tower and finds that at some point in however long he’s been sitting by Bucky’s bed the sun has risen. It’s strange standing on the sidewalk watching people drift off to work or school or wherever like today is a normal day. 

“It is to them,” Ally says softly, leaning into his side. 

Steve knows this but it doesn’t stop it feeling strange, feeling like it did when he’d wake up eighty years ago in his empty apartment knowing that somewhere in the world there was a war going on. That men would die and kill and wake up in foxholes and hastily put up tents. That men were fighting while he was grocery shopping and going to the cinema. 

Ally shakes herself, “So, where do we start?”

And Steve realises he has no idea.

-

They walk the streets for hours, check alleyways and abandoned buildings, anywhere a wolf could hide. “Maybe she wasn’t here after all,” Ally says morosely as they trapse through park after park. “Maybe we imagined her.”

Steve’s not going to tell her that that’s what he’s been worrying about ever since they saw her weeks ago in the aftermath of an alien war (because she already knows that) and his phone chooses that moment to buzz with string of text messages from Tony varying from annoyed to frantic to _if you don’t get your patriotic butt back here Fury is going to steal your assassin boyfriend away and possibly drop me from the Avengers rosta_.

Steve sighs. Tugs at his hair. Growls. 

There’s a little girl watching him, daemon a red squirrel on her shoulder. She should definitely be in school but Steve’s not going to point that out because there’s a woman a few feet away yelling on her phone that is probably the kid’s mother. “You’re Captain America,” she breaths and Steve shoots her a weak smile.

He doesn’t get recognised that often. He’s grateful for that.

The kid takes a few steps towards him and beckons for him to lean down, which he does, and she whispers, “Are you looking for a bad guy?”

Steve chuckles and Alessia wags her tail, “No, kid, not today.”

She looks disappointed, “Oh. I thought ‘cos you looked so sad you might have been…”

“No, I’m looking for…” he pauses, searching for the right phrasing, “something an old friend lost. Something real important to him.”

“Oh, must be really important then.”

Steve nods, “Yeah, I think it might help him.”

She frowns, “How come he needs help?”

“He...uh…” He looks to Ally inclines her head. “He doesn’t remember who he really is.”

“Like a curse?” she asks, brow furrowed. 

“Yeah, kid, a curse.”

Her face brightens, “Well, that’s easy then!”

And Steve blinks at her, “What’s easy?”

“Breaking a curse!” she says, smiling. “True loves kiss, silly! That _always_ works.”

Behind him Ally chokes with laughter and Steve finds himself sniggering, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She nods and her daemon flickers into a blue jay, “I’ve gotta go, good luck!” And she turns to run back to her mother. Steve straightens as she scampers off and Alessia shoves her nose into her hand, “Well that’s sorted then,” she says, “All we need to do is find someone to kiss him and he’ll be fine.”

“We should head back soon,” is all he says and then he sighs. He really had thought they might find her. 

“You woulda thought,” Ally remarks as they head on down the path, “That she woulda come to find us. I mean she must know that we’d never hurt Bucky, right?”

“Maybe she didn’t know where to find us,” Steve suggests. 

“Maybe she went home,” Ally says softly. They’ve checked all their old hangout spots, or at least the ones that are still standing, they checked the building that used to be their orphanage, the dance halls they used to frequent, the art school Steve went to before the war began. Their old apartment building has been gone for years, it’s an office block now, harsh and cold and corporate, but it’s worth a shot. 

-

They hop on a train to Brooklyn and stare up at the building that used to be home. It’s not like they haven’t been here before but every time they get here they’re frozen. 

It was only a few years ago for them. 

It doesn’t make sense.

“Where would you be if you were hiding here, Al?” he asks when the memories have faded into background noise. Ally is quiet for a few moments and then she says, “If I was hiding here - which I _wouldn’t_ be - I’d - ” she breaks off, something’s caught her eye and then without warning she charges off yelling, “Come on, Steve!”

He stumbles after her as she darts through the tight streets and alleys, loses her for a few minutes and when he catches up she’s crouched by a bush lining the side of a building, tail wagging at a million miles per hour. “She’s here, Steve! She’s here!” 

Steve falls to his knees to peer through the leaves. Aneira is crouched by the building, as far away from them as she can be, teeth exposed in a half-hearted snarl. Her fur is matted, she’s rail thin and Steve finds himself reaching for her before he’s even really processed what he’s doing. She ducks away from his hand and he draws it back, flushing slightly. (He’s touched her before in the heat of battle, to yank her out of the way of a bullet and he still remembers that explosion at his fingertips, that sudden swell of warmth in his chest, the way Bucky had almost fallen over.)

“ _Aneira_ ,” he breathes. 

She growls at him, “Stay away, Steve. You’re working with _them_ , you’re working with S.H.I.E.L.D!”

 _Crap,_ Steve thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve- Alessia (Greek, defender) wolf-dog hybrid
> 
> Bucky- Aneira (Welsh, snow) wolf
> 
> Tony- Mena (Sanskrit, knowledgeable) New Caledonian Crow (because they're crazy smart)
> 
> Tasha- Vikenti (Russian, Conqueror) Inland Taipan
> 
> Bruce- Iakona (greek, healer) Bengal cat
> 
> Clint - Kahu (Maori, hawk) Harris' hawk 
> 
> Howard - Ilona, (Greek, bright/torch) American mink
> 
> Darcy has a pangolin 'cos they are the most awesome creatures ever. 
> 
> It's my headcannon that soldiers/agents have their daemon bonds stretched for obvious reasons, which is why Vikenti goes with Steve and Alessia.


End file.
